The Belly of the Beast
by thorney33
Summary: Zara Young, a beautiful young personal assistant, finds her life turned upside down when she is swallowed whole by a large, aquatic beast. However, she is determined to fight her way to freedom and preserve her sanity. Can she escape from the cavern of the beast? Or will she learn that sometimes being swallowed alive is not a terrible thing, but an opportunity to be embraced?


My name is Zara Young. That I know to be true, at the very least. And even that I question sometimes. I have found that the longer I sit in this dark cavern, the more and more that my wits have been failing me. Oh well. Knowledge won't get me very far in here, anyway. Unless it is the knowledge of how to circumnavigate through the colon of a large, aquatic species that should have been extinct for millions of bloody years.

I don't wish to dwell on how this predicament came to be. I don't wish to dwell on the fact that my sexually repressed bitch-of-a-boss Claire asked me to watch over her nephews, a task that should have been her own. I don't wish to dwell on the fact that the two pampered little shits managed to evade my grasp in a moment of text-induced distraction. I don't wish to dwell on the fact that I, in my best attempts to save the children from the clawed grasps of some marauding flying beasts, was plucked from the ground like an egg from the backside of a chicken and flung about like my cousin Gwenilda at her sorority parties. I don't wish to dwell on the fact that our 'star attraction' swallowed both my attacker and I whole, sliding me down his throat much like Gwenilda would a…

…anyway. I do not wish to dwell upon such things.

Kicking the slimy, beaked skull to the left with a wry smile, I couldn't help but wonder how things could have turned out even worse. In a weird way, I was lucky to still be standing. My flying friend had not been quite so lucky. As the creature had emerged from the depths, I had been lucky enough to narrowly avoided being sliced into a thousand pieces by row upon row of jagged teeth. The very same teeth ripped through the bird and, as I watched in a mixture of horror and delight, the strips flew down the gullet right next to me. I grabbed on to the nearest remnant, the beak – with some flesh still attached – and watched hopelessly as the slight glimmer of sunlight faded away from above. The beast slowly closed its mouth and dove back below the surface, just as the light faded completely from view. I could still hear the faint screams from the crowd, and could only hope that I was not the only poor soul unlucky enough to suffer such a hideous fate. If this was to be the day that I would die, then I did not want to be approaching the pearly gates on my lonesome.

Now, laying on the spongy floor of whichever wretched part of the beast that I found myself in, I felt comforted by the grisly dinosaur beak laying at my feet. Resisting the mad urge to call it Wilson, I merely hugged it close to my chest and imagined that it was my fiancé instead. **My fiancé!** My hands trembled as I nearly dropped my new friend to the floor. I had left him all alone in this terrifying world! Whatever would he do without me? Realising with horror that his idiocy would probably extend to ordering the lavender placemats for the reception instead of the sunshine blue, I perhaps could have considered the swallowing a blessing in disguise.

From what I could tell about my cell, it was around five metres by two metres, with enough space to stand if I slightly stooped by head. The walls were an eerie mixture of pink and blue, with strange veins running down the side like some mad tree trying to break out of the same prison as myself.

"Hello! Hello! Hello!"

The call echoed around the room and down the various corridors that connected to the various parts of the creature's body. I had yet to build up the courage to explore said areas; the risk of gastric acid or complete digestion had so far proven too much for me to handle. One day, I would have to build up the courage to leave the area. Food was going to be an issue – licking the damp walls so far had filled me with enough moisture to last me a few days, but I wasn't going to survive on the internal juices of my captor forever. I also needed food, and some form of mental stimulation. Once again, I lowered my head and reminded myself of what I had to hold on to, if I was to ever make it out of this hellish situation and once again walk among the leagues of men.

My name is Zara Young. I know that much.

But I also know this – I will not die here – in the belly of the beast.


End file.
